Big win for Truman State basketball

Wednesday

Dec 19, 2012 at 2:45 PM

Dennis Miller

The Truman State men’s basketball team did something they haven’t been able to do in a few years: the beat Quincy College. This year was the first year since the MIAA expanded to a 43 team league or however many teams it has now that Truman and Quincy have been able to get back to playing each other twice a year. The two teams who will be playing each other twice a season from here on out split their two games this year with Quincy defeating Truman by two points back on November 20. Truman looked very impressive and really came together as a team in my opinion more than they had at any other point this year. Truman has one more non conference game at Pershing on December 30 before getting back to their final run through the MIAA.

The women’s team split their games in California beating a very good California Baptist team before losing a tough one on Tuesday. The women also have one more conference game at Pershing on December 31 before they too resume their final campaign in the MIAA.

Both Truman teams will cease basketball operations for seven days beginning on December 20 in order to comply with the NCAA who likes to think they are a compassionate bunch of control freaks by declairing that all Division II and III teams must adhere to a rest period over the Christmas holiday and teams are not allowed to practice and coaches cannot have any contact with their players. I wonder what happens if a coach’s son or daughter plays on the team, do they have to be locked in their room that week? Please note that I was careful to state that the rule applies to Division II and III schools, it does not apply to Division I schools because that would mean the schools would lose money, the NCAA would lose money, ESPN would lose money, and Dick Vitale would have nothing to do for seven straight days. Therefore the Division I schools will continue playing basketball. Compassion does not extend to bigtime college sports. Someone should ask the NCAA to explain this rule but nobody will. I tried calling them but they are still mad at me for calling them a corrupt group of dictators earlier this year and won’t talk to me. People are so sensitive any more.

The Missouri Tigers hung on to beat South Carolina State 102 to 51 on Monday night. I kind of figured Missouri had the game wrapped up when the score was 76 to 30 but you never know. Missouri plays a very good Illinois team on Saturday. Illinois is undefeated thus far and ranked 10th in the country. This will be a stern test for Missouri as Illinois’ schedule has been somewhat tougher than Missouri’s.

The Kirksville High School wrestling team destroyed Mexico on Tuesday evening to go into the holiday break with all appearances of being one of the top if not the top high school wrestling teams in the state. It’s incredible to watch this outstanding program year after year. Coach Kevin Powell has done an incredible job with these young men.

The Kirksville High School boys basketball team lost a tough one on Monday at Clark County and have been up and down so far this year but are much improved over last year in my opinion and are still coming together as a team.

The KHS girls basketball team continues to win and win impressively as they handily defeated Clark County on Monday evening. The girls will be playing at Trenton later in the week. By the way, I realized after I submitted Monday’s blog that I had failed to make note of the fact that Mckenziee Russell scored her 1,000th point over the weekend. Congratulations Mckenziee, what an awesome accomplishment!

I also wanted to make mention of the fact that Truman State’s sports information director Kevin White broadcast both Truman women’s basketball games from California earlier this week and did an outsanding job. He could definitely have a second career in radio if he wanted it.

We will be back on Friday with a look ahead to this weekend’s sports action as well as whatever else comes our way. Thanks for supporting this and all the other blogs on the site and as always your comments are welcome. I appreciate the Kirksville Daily Express promoting this blog on their Facebook page as well.

Have a great Wednesday and stay safe!

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